6 Leadership TED Talks To Help Build Your Skills

I’ve picked 6 of my favorite leadership TED Talks to help build your leadership skills and inspire your management team. Great leaders decry being labeled as such, often falling into an easy, self-deprecating rejection of compliments from their fans. They still blush when referring to their skills.

What are those skills? They cared personally, deeply, and meaningfully for every person in their organization. That means they took the time to know us, our families, our values, and our career skills. 

At Leader’s Cut, we believe there are six keys to building an independent, accountable team. They are the abilities to communicate, delegate, motivate, recruit, collaborate, and develop. Skills, when mastered, create a symbiotic, productive, enduring relationship between leadership and their reports.

How to Deal with Difficult People by Jay Johnson

Have you ever encountered a difficult person, walked away, and then thought about what you SHOULD have said?

Unfortunately, it’s true for all of us. And in the workspace, conflict can kill morale, sales, and profit and increase turnover. If you’d like to become a more effective communicator, listen to Jay Johnson discuss communication tips. His archetypes include the “not listener,” the “one upper,” the “gossiper,” and the “curmudgeon.”

Positive intent will keep you from making assumptions, such as talking to people in a “conflict” or assigning nefarious motives to their actions/words.

How Leaders Balance Authority and Collaboration by Rob Pennington

Nearly every leader I know, have worked with, or coached has uttered the phrase, I just don’t have enough time.

This is where the critical skill of being able to delegate comes into play.

Most think delegation is a matter of setting the stage or empowering others than simply handing off.

This leadership failure is what Rob Pennington would call emphasizing too much or too little authority. It is the reason so many leaders have so little time. They either do not delegate or do so incorrectly to reinforce their belief that to be done correctly, they must hold on to their work.

The Puzzle of Motivation by Dan Pink

This is the quintessential talk on motivation with this headline: Business denies what science knows.

Money is NOT a motivator; it is a satisfier.

Please read that as often as necessary until you can refrain from adding “but” and give your impression of motivation with money. It’s autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

When you introduce these elements into your culture, you will be shocked by the tangible results that result from the seemingly intangible motivators.

Taking Recruitment Practices to a New Level by Stefanie Stanislawski

Before “quiet quitting” became the nom du jour, we labeled the behavior as low engagement. And I’ll be the first to tell you that if you have strong leadership, a winning culture, and turnover, your recruiting could likely use a redux.

Knowing who your best team members are and creating a process for finding candidates that match that persona is vital to long-term success.

The Power of Collaboration by Howard Rheingold

Why can’t we all just get along? Most would agree that working together produces better ideas and better execution.

However, we have all seen that pressure to perform, compete, and produce often impedes the intention of collaboration.

In this Ted Talk, you’ll hear the historical case for what is possible with cooperation and an exciting new future. Unfortunately, so much of our leadership is based on outdated rationalizations, and you’ll hear how that applies here.

Forget the pecking order at work by Margaret Heffernan

As a leader, you’re concerned about productivity, whether you are a solopreneur or have accountability for thousands. We’ve been taught that the way to success is to compete, be the best, and reap the rewards.

Collective success through developing others is flourishing, especially in transparency, collaboration, and enrichment of others.

In this Ted talk, hear what happens when everyone’s genius is brought to bear.

The going will always get tough, as Margaret Heffernan reminded us in her talk.

However, constantly improving your leadership skills will enable your organization to grow. It would be illogical to assume that your company, leadership team, and employees will improve if you do not invest in your leadership skills.

If you want to discuss the possibilities that coaching can help you unlock, schedule your meet & greet with Ken Kilday.

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